Travel chaos to hit Cebit IT exhibition

Bus strike planned for first day of Hanover show

By Martyn Williams | 03 March 08

The start of the world's largest IT trade exhibition - Cebit - face a morning of transport chaos on the opening day of the show.

Workers at Ustra, one of the public transport operators in Hanover, are planning to strike from 3am to 7am local time on Tuesday, March 4. As a result the first bus services of the morning aren't likely to start operating until around 7:30am and most tram services won't start until around 8:30am.

Travellers to Cebit will get one break: trams serving the fair on lines 8 and 18 should be running slightly earlier that other lines at 8am. They'll also be more running that normal to help relieve what is likely to be a considerable backlog of people.

Ustra advises travellers to delay journeys if possible because the first trams of the morning are likely to be very crowded.

RegioBus and Deutsche Bahn services will not be affected.

Cebit is attracts almost half a million people each year. Many of them travel to the fair on public transport with the tram service being one of the most popular ways to get to the fairground.